practice on my guitar more

Have been playing almost 5 years now.

Been practising Mew- Introducing Palace Prayers.

I will measure my progress by uploading performances to youtube. My goal is to get a few thousand hits on each video I put up. My performances need to be flawless and interesting.

Dedicated practice time, not idle noodling. Still, keeping it enjoyable- no sitting down with a metronome to run up and down scales all day. Songs, songs, songs. Get a solid repetoire.

I’ve been learning how to play the acoustic guitar for two years now, but whenever I get home I’m always way too lazy to practice. My guitar teacher says if I practiced just half an hour every day, I’d already be a lot better, but I just can’t seem to be able to get my lazy ass to do it. :D

I got my new guitar a couple months back. It sounds better, plays better, and fits better. Those of us with short arms should try something other than the usual dreadnought size guitar.

I haven’t played so much in the last few years, but I got my old guitar worked on, and I’m buying a new one that’s sized better.

So I sat down and started playing idly while watching a show, and some “music” started coming out. So I stopped the show and plugged my guitar into the Mac to start recording. An hour or more flies by, and I’m left with a very short and very simple song. My wife says it sounds like a “friendlier” version of Metallica, hahaha.

http://cpgnition.googlepages.com/MetalNett1.mp3

I actually feel kind of proud.

I would like to become better at guitar, and to do that, I need to practice more.

There was a time where I was making real progress. I’ve never had a teacher: all that fueled me was a passion for metal.

But now… I’ve seen so many people in my grade who are millions of times better than me, and I’ve let that prevent me from moving my playing forward. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and tried to learn a new song or even a new riff.

The key here is to stop comparing myself to others and start playing just for myself, for the sake of creating music. I resolve to start practicing at least an hour a day, starting today or tomorrow. Once I’ve kept this up for several months, I’ll consider this goal complete.

EDIT: Played for an hour today. Towards the end I was getting so into it I had to force myself to stop, since I can’t let guitar take precedence over piano practice. But…. learned a good deal of “Valhall Awaits Me” (Amon Amarth) and the bits I haven’t learned don’t seem that difficult either. Hopefully I’ll be able to get this in a performable state within a week or so.

EDIT #2: It’s going much better. Almost have the song down, it’s just a matter of getting my hand used to fast alternate picking again. Also got invited to play guitar in a friend’s band for a Battle of the Bands tryout.

I need to improve!

I just picked up my guitar again, bought some new strings, restrung my acoustic, bought a tuner and i am ready to rock!

Every time I see a live show it makes me want to pick up my guitar again. It’s awesome to express oneself musically.